Visible light communication (VLC) using LED diodes and photodiodes offers the potential for high data rate wireless communication. By some estimates, LEDs will dominate the lighting market of the future and as such will create the opportunity for enabling auxiliary downlink carriers for indoor wireless access.
Typically, a receiver including a photodiode is operated with a fixed reverse bias value to accommodate the highest expected data rates to be used. Although simple to implement, this fixed reverse bias voltage approach can be wasteful in terms of the battery power consumed by the VLC receiver in a mobile device when the amount of data being transmitted is low and/or infrequent.
Based on the above discussion there is a need for new methods and apparatus for efficient receiver operation in environments where different types and/or amounts of data are to be communicated via VLC.